Comment by gcr
6 months ago
No, it’s GPL3, so your game must be open-source.
If the authors wanted to protect engine development while allowing indies to sell games made on it, they would have picked LGPL or a more permissive license.
6 months ago
No, it’s GPL3, so your game must be open-source.
If the authors wanted to protect engine development while allowing indies to sell games made on it, they would have picked LGPL or a more permissive license.
since when do people not sell GPL games?
You are technically correct, and I believe the GPL doesn't cover the assets for the game (levels, art, audio, etc.), but I suspect there aren't many GPL licensed games out there for sale that have sold enough copies to make developing them worthwhile financially.
I'd love to be wrong, so if you have a few examples, I'm all ears.
Probably not much in the AA/AAA space, but plenty of indies. The Doom engine (and GZDoom, which is the most common Doom engine derivative) is GPL and there have been multiple commercially successful games released using it. I know at least Hedon[0] and Hands of Necromancy[1] sold enough copies to warrant a sequel.
GPL vs LGPL definitely isn't a blocker for a commercial game, in any case.
[0] https://github.com/madame-rachelle/hgzdoom https://store.steampowered.com/app/1072150/Hedon_Bloodrite/
[1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1898610/Hands_of_Necroman...
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Remember the GPL only applies to the code you can make a great game with beautiful artwork and distribute the source code to anyone who wants it. Nobody playing the game will have much fun without the artwork.
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Selaco is one example, its quite popular
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1592280/Selaco/
https://github.com/TheCockatrice/GZSelaco
You can sell them on PC, but any dream of console releases are dead in the water as Sony,etc forbids distribution or even code using their SDK's to be shared publicly.